Today is all about episodes wrapping things up on the show, with multiple plot threads closed in what was meant to be near the end of the final season.

Chimera

Synopsis

Daniel is in an archaeological office at what appears to be a university before being joined by Sarah Gardner, indicating this is a dream. Quickly the scene shifts to Daniel’s house where it’s seen that Osiris is manipulating his dreams for an unknown purpose. Also outside work Carter is at a coffee shop with her boyfriend Pete, a cop from Denver who looks similar to that cop from 21 Jump Street, before heading to work where she finds a sleep-deprived Daniel and O’Neill. O’Neill and herself share an uncomfortable ride in the lift as he’s made aware that she’s dating someone. That evening Osiris once again manipulates Daniel’s dreams.

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Some days later Osiris’s presence is explained. The Goa’uld is using the dreams as a way to get Daniel to translate an Ancient tablet that contains unknown information. He relays his dreams to his teammates while at the SGC but they think his subconscious is just trying to access information he once had and that he should keep trying to translate it. Daniel however starts to grow suspicious as the dreams aren’t how he remembers events occurring in his memories and that Sarah is acting oddly.

Elsewhere Carter’s relationship with Pete continues to move forward, with the two of them going out dancing and Pete attempting to get a transfer to Colorado Springs to stay near her. Their relationship takes a turn however when Carter closes off about her history due to the secret nature of her work which Pete takes as her not trusting him. Instead of letting it go Pete calls a friend in the FBI find out about Carter’s background, who comes back with his own suspicions after the FBI background check comes up empty.

At the SGC Daniel relays his new fears to the others which they take seriously. They finally tack on to the idea that maybe Osiris is manipulating Daniel to help the Goa’uld to find the Ancient’s Lost City. The team decided to keep watch on Daniel’s house and grab Osiris when Daniel finally decodes the tablet, allowing the SGC to obtain information while also removing one of Anubis’ key allies. Little do they know however that Pete is tailing them due to his suspicions about Carter.

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The next morning the jig is up when Daniel lets on he knows it’s a trick by Osiris. Despite O’Neill’s attempt to tranq her while she’s in the house she makes her way outside just as Pete decides to confront Carter, with him getting caught up in the firefight and injured when the surveillance van explodes. Thankfully though the distraction is enough to allow Teal’c and O’Neill to tranq her successfully. At the SCG Sarah is finally freed from the Goa’uld by the Tok’ra while Carter and Pete make up.

Analysis

As an episode Chimera is in some ways contradictory. Here we see the closing off of one loose thread that has been present for three seasons now while we also focus on the introduction of another.

The story largely resolves around that of two couples, that of Daniel and Sarah many years before and the new relationship between Carter and Pete, and we find that both were at different stages completely terrible but yet both are required to be terrible for the plot to succeed and work out well for everyone. Daniel only realises that it’s Osiris because Sarah, who it emerges broke up with him because he’s obsessed with his work, in his dreams suddenly wants him to work himself to death over an artefact while with Carter and Pete the team is only able to nab Osiris at the end because Pete makes such a nice target for the Goa’uld to shoot at for a few seconds.

One of the main problems with the story is that is revolves around Osiris as the big bad. While this can be overlooked to some degree by the end I couldn’t help but go “but she hasn’t appeared for two seasons now so how is she a massive threat again”. Much in the same way as Tanith back in seasons 4 and 5 Osiris has never really made an impact as a villain, only appearing in 5 episodes over 4 seasons (with her totally absent in season 6), making it hard to see her as a main villain in the same way we see Apophis, Anubis, or Ba’al. At least with Tanith they just killed him in the first 30 seconds of an episode.

The only real area the show moves forward on for this episode is Carter. Only two episodes after Grace, where Carter was confronted with her fears outside of her job, our female lead has already taken the advice to heart and started dating a cop, While it appears the relationship could work it’s hard to see Pete as nothing more than a poor man’s O’Neill, with both being involved in public service and being constant jokers. It appears that Carter isn’t over O’Neill as much as the character would like us to think.

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Overall the episode finally removes yet another Goa’uld from the lineup but in a rather underwhelming way with the Goa’uld in question having been on the sidelines for at least 30 episodes now while also moving Carter forward slightly into the future.

Assorted Musings

· Where Carter hums the theme for the show it was originally meant to be the theme to MacGyver.

· Teal’c really does play into all the stereotypes for stakeouts doesn’t he.

· The fact all of Carter’s love interests have died so far is one of the most common in jokes on the behind the scenes content.

Quote of the episode: “I feel compelled to warn you. Most of the guys I’ve dated recently have died.”

“As in?”

“Dead.” – Carter and Pete

Death Knell

Synopsis

Carter and Jacob/Selmak are off-world at the current SGC Alpha Site working on a way to kill the new Anubis Kull supersoldiers with the Ancient artefact the team recovered in Central America. While working Carter jokes with her father about his grumpiness though it hits on yet another part of her social circle Carter stopped talking with. Their conversation is cut short however when Goa’uld ships approach the new site from orbit, commencing a hurried evacuation to the Beta Site.

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The SGC receives word of the evacuation from the Beta Site and that almost 100 combined Tau’ri-Tok’ra-Jaffa personnel from the Alpha Site are still MIA including the CO. Upon sending a MALP through to the Alpha Site they find that the Stargate at the base has been knocked over, preventing further evacuation. SG-1 and SG-3 decide to head through anyway to try and locate any survivors. While conducting an initial search they come across proof that at least one Kull supersoldier is still on the planet. SG-3 however find a small group of survivors of all three groups who were at the Alpha Site but it still leaves Carter, Jacob/Selmak, and around 70 others unaccounted for. The SGC sends more team through to help with SAR and secure the Gate to allow the evacuation of the survivors already found.

In the forest SG-1 finds Jacob heavily injured. Though unable to tell them where Carter is, Jacob is able to provide the team with a prototype anti-Kull weapon but is only “semi-effective” so far. While Teal’c and O’Neill continue the hunt Daniel joins Jacob back at the SGC, where Hammond launches a heavily armed UAV to help with neutralising any Kull warriors that may be present. In the infirmary Daniel talks with Jacob who tells him that the Kull warriors knew which hut contained the prototype and focused on hunting down himself and Carter as they had the prototype.

While the hunt continues the SGC begins full inquiry at the behest of the Pentagon at how the Alpha Site was discovered. This inevitably leads to issues with all three groups as they begin to suspect each other of giving away their secrets to Anubis. The ongoing attack by Anubis on a System Lord is also throwing up tensions between all three groups as the Tau’ri feel left in the dark while the Jaffa believe the Tok’ra are deliberately letting Jaffa be killed. While Jacob/Selmak tries to defend the Tok’ra as he isn’t aware of any spy in the System Lord ranks he later finds out that he’s now seen as too close to the Tau’ri and would’ve informed the Tau’ri of the missing Tok’ra spy.

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Back on the planet that formerly held the Alpha Site Carter is shown to be injured but alive, still hunted down by a Kull warrior in the woods. Carter however is barely able to stay ahead of the supersoldier chasing her with it ambushing her at multiple locations and taking out the UAV sent to help her. Carter however makes it to the crashed UAV first and sets up a makeshift weapon using a missile that survived the crash. While Carter is able to hit the warrior with the missile it doesn’t kill him, with the warrior only killed when Teal’c and O’Neill show up and she’s able to give them an upgraded prototype weapon.

While on the planet the team are successful in saving Carter and retrieving the prototype that Anubis aimed to destroy the Goa’uld wins an even greater victory he isn’t aware of, the practical collapse of the Tau’ri-Tok’ra-Jaffa Alliance which has finally given way under the strain of their differing issues.

Analysis

So there we have Death Knell, a title that is relevant to both of the main story threads of the episode.

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Here the episode sees the end of two aspects of the show that it’s relied on for a while now. The first of these is the seemingly invincible nature of Anubis as a force who always ends up being one step ahead of the SGC. While the SGC were able to destroy his planet killer at the start of the season and hold him off from Kelowna immediately after that it’s always been very clear that these were little more than holding actions against him. Now however the SGC have the technology to easily kill Kull warriors, which were meant to be Anubis’ trump card in defeating all his enemies, with only a couple of shots to the chest.

This removal of the Kull as a threat displays the issue with these later seasons of SG-1 where the constant threat of cancellation and moving to films meant that threats would be introduced and then dealt with insanely fast with the Kull were only introduced 5 episodes ago and are now practically removed as a threat. Funnily enough it’d be season 10 that doesn’t end a threat so fast and that was the season where the show got cancelled.

The other aspect the show has ended is the alliance between the main forces against the Goa’uld. Ever since the introduction of the Tok’ra in season 2 and then the rebel Jaffa in season 5’s The Warrior the show has left it dangling that while all three forces are allied with each other but in reality reliant on the SGC for pretty much everything. Now we finally see that this situation was untenable with all sides fed up with how the others are operating, with the Tau’ri and Jaffa fed up with the Tok’ra’s secrecy, the Tok’ra and Jaffa fed up with the Tau’ri’s need to know everything, and the Tau’ri and Tok’ra fed up with the Jaffa overreaction to being questioned about anything. By the end of the episode the three groups go their separate ways though how long this lasts is up for debate as the three groups always end up thrust together at some point in the season.

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In the end the removal of two key aspects of the show were a mixed affair, with one the end of a multiple season long issue that felt well rounded while the other was a hurried ending of a threat only a quarter of a season old.

Assorted Musings

· Even with a manual redial it’s a one-way trip as they wouldn’t be able to access the right side of the Gate with it flat on the side like it is.

Quote of the episode: “This prototype should have been done weeks ago.”